Unlike the rest of the world, I caught on to Swedish indie pop trio Peter Bjorn and John late, a little while after the band's hit single, "Young Folks," became the most overplayed song of '07. The catchy, saccharine ditty off PBJ's 2006 album, Writer's Block, made it onto commercials by Budweiser, AT&T, Napster and Banana Republic, into the soundtracks of shows like Gossip Girl and Grey's Anatomy, and popped up in various other random places — a Chanel fashion show, FIFA 08 (a football video game), complilations like Acoustic 07, and in the film 21. And "Young Folks" was covered by all-manner of musicians — Germany singer Nena covered it in German for the movie Vollidiot with Oliver Pocher and Stephan Remmler, Japanese singer Shugo Tokumaru performed it in '06 for a Cokemachineglow fantasy covers podcast, Kanye West sampled "Young Folks" in two separate tracks (one of the same name), James Blunt played it on BBC Radio1's Live Lounge and KLLC's Now & Zen Fest, and Pete Yorn likes to bust it out at live shows.
So what does it all mean? Nothing, except that PBJ has finally announced the release date of its first official studio follow-up to Writers Block.
This article appears in Jan 14-20, 2009.